Zionism and Israel - Encyclopedic
Dictionary

Arab Revolt (in Palestine) or "The Great Uprising"Definition

Arab Revolt (in Palestine) - The Arab revolt in Palestine should be distinguished
from the Arab revolt of WW I that was led by Lawrence of Arabia and Sherif Hussein. It was also called "The Meoraot" -
by the Jews, and the "Praot" - riots, and the "Great uprising" by the Arabs.

The "Arab revolt" in Palestine, or "The Great
Uprising" took place
between 1935-6 and 1939. It consisted of a strike including withholding of taxes, of acts of
sabotage against British forces, assassination of British officials, murder of Jewish civilians and murder of other
Arabs. The revolt was triggered by Arab dissatisfaction and alarm at the relatively large number of Jewish immigrants
arriving in the early 1930s, worsening economic conditions due to the world depression and other factors, and disaffection
stirred up by the Husseini clan.

The revolt was a pivotal event in the history of Zionism and of Palestine:

It signaled the real beginning of active involvement of the Arab
states in the Palestinian cause.

It established an ethos of Arab violence and of Jewish
reprisals against Arab civilians.

It destroyed the leadership of the Palestinian Arab community.
This occurred mostly because Hajj Amin El Husseini's Al Futuwwa (officially designated "Nazi Scouts"[1]) liquidated most of the Palestinian opposition, especially the Nashashibi and Nusseibeh families.

It precipitated a final break between the Zionist movement and
the British when the British ended Jewish immigration with the
White Paper of 1939. This embittered the Zionist movement,
especially when it turned out that nearly all the Jews trapped in Europe were murdered in the Holocaust.

It helped to create the Haganah as an effective fighting force
and at the same time generated the Irgun as a dissident group.

It gave birth to the idea of Palestine partition - the
Peel
Commission Report,
generated as a result of the revolt, floated the idea of partition of Palestine.

The events of the revolt thus set the stage for the further events of 1946-1948 including
partition of Palestine, Israel independence and the clash of the Arabs and Jews of Palestine in the war of
1948. These however, were postponed because of the intervention of World War II.

All of the issues of the Arab-Zionist struggle in Palestinian had matured and had been framed
by the time of the uprising. Each side was right from their point of view. The real issue was the threat of a Jewish
majority in Palestine, which would make Palestinian Arabs lose any hope of political control of Palestine. The reality
of the threat was brought home by the increase in Jewish population from 17% to 27% of Palestinian population in five
years. In 1935, the last big immigration year, over 66,000 Jews had arrived in Palestine, mostly from Germany where
conditions had become intolerable with the rise of Nazism. The Arab perception of the threat was made quite clear from
the start. By 1919, representatives of the Jaffa Muslim-Christian council were
saying:

"We will push the Zionists into the sea or they will push us into the desert"
[2]

This animosity and desire for domination was legitimate from the narrow standpoint of
nationalist interests, though it is to be noted that the Arabs of Palestine had never had political control of Palestine
in all history. It was originally a province of the Arab Caliphate and later a province of the Mameluke and Ottoman
Turkish empires. During the time of the Crusader kingdom they were ruled by Christian Europeans.

The Palestinians wished to present their cause in a different light. Therefore, the
issue was carefully disguised as a fear of economic displacement for the purposes of convincing British commissions
regarding the "plight" of the Arabs of Palestine. However, there were no real data to back up the claims of economic
deprivation. The Arabs of Palestine enjoyed an unprecedented economic advance during most of the period of the British
mandate
(see
Zionism and Its Impact ), though the period in
question coincided with a world depression and with a local drought that had forced many Palestinians off the land. To bolster their claims
however, the Arabs of Palestine could point out the announced policy of the Zionist movement of encouraging the hiring
of Jewish, rather than Arab workers in Jewish industries. They could also point out that they were denied democratic
representation according to their numbers in the government of Palestine.

From their point of view, the Zionist movement had invested large sums of money in
Palestine, as well as considerable efforts in helping to secure a British Mandate for Palestine. All this was done to
obtain a national home, and the further investment and cooperation with the mandate was on
the basis of the promise, secured in the Mandate of the League of Nations, that Palestine would be a national home for
the Jewish people. Moreover, the Jews of Europe were rightly perceived to be in mortal peril. It seemed a natural right
and duty for the Jews of Palestine to extend every aid and shelter to their brothers. If Arabs had faced a similar
danger, would not the Arabs of Palestine have rallied to their aid?

The revolt can be viewed as having the following stages and major "events" associated with
it.

Prologue - The economic and political setting and events prior to the revolt.

Revolt of Izzedin el-Qassam and his death at the hands of the British in November
1935.

Cooptation by the Mufti and The General Strike - The revolt was coopted by
Grand Mufti Hajj Amin el Husseini. Establishment of the Arab higher committee and the general
strike and sporadic violence in the spring of 1936. During this period, the Zionist Executive and the
Haganah counseled Havlaga - self control, and
dissident Etzel (Irgun) likewise followed this policy.

The interlude of the Peel Commission - The general strike was called off and violence
was stopped beginning in October of 1936, in order to give the Peel commission time to work.

Resumption of the Revolt - After the efforts of the Peel commission ended in failure,
the revolt resumed. In September or October of 1937, the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin el Husseini
and much of the Arab Higher Committee were forced to flee after the murder of Lewis Andrews, the British High Commissioner for the Galilee. - The revolt did not end with the flight
of Husseini and the higher committee, but rather increased in intensity, to the point where the British lost control
entirely in Jerusalem and Beersheba for while. Numerous greater or lesser attacks on Jews like the
Kiryat Haroshet Massacre of 1938 caused the
Etzel to move to
reprisal attacks, and the
Haganah also began more pinpoint reprisals.

St James Conference - The British called a "round table conference" in London in
February 1939 in an attempt to get some agreement regarding the future of Palestine. The conference was a failure.

Further suppression of the revolt - The revolt sputtered on until September of 1939
despite the issuance of the British White Paper in May of 1939 and despite brutal attempts at suppression. The final
dissolution of the revolt did not come until the outbreak of World War II. Remarkably, until that time, the French had
allowed the leadership of the revolt to continue its operations in Damascus unhindered. When war broke out, the French
suppressed the Damascus leadership and the revolt came to an end.

The events of the revolt are surprisingly poorly documented in histories of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Militarily the Arabs suffered the most. About 500 Jews and 4,500- 5,000 Arabs died
in total. A large number of Arabs were killed by Husseini's faction, which apparently killed more Arabs than Jews, and
most of the rest were killed by brutal British reprisals. There was at least one massacre of Jews in Tiberias. In
Jerusalem and Hebron, the Arabs wrested control from the British and the Jewish communities had to be evacuated. The
remnant of the Hebron community, which had been weakened by the
massacre of 1929 after living there for hundreds of years, did not return
after 1936. The Jewish community in the old
city of Jerusalem was greatly depopulated. Additionally, there were numerous separate incidents of terror, directed
against Jewish civilians, against infrastructure and against British officials and soldiers. Zionist sources do
not dwell on Arab massacres and violence very much, because at the time the importance of Arab violence was minimized so
as not to discourage immigration to Palestine. Diplomatically, there is no doubt that the Arabs won their objective with
the publication of the British White Paper of 1939, which ended Jewish immigration for all practical purposes. In any
event, immigration had been curtailed during the years of the revolt.

An aspect of the revolt that is especially poorly documented is the chain of leadership and
financing. The revolt was coopted in its later stages by the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin
al Husseini
and his family, but it was ignited by Izzedin el Qassam, a Syrian immigrant to Palestine, and the military leadership
and supply bases remained in Syria, which was controlled by the French. As noted, no steps were taken against this
leadership until the outbreak of World War II.

Prologue

The violence and agitation that had come to the fore in the riots of 1929 never really
stopped. There were continual incidents, meetings and initiatives by Palestinians against Jewish settlement in
Palestine. According to Ghassan Kanafani [3] the following parties had been formed by 1935 with the
dissolution of the Arab Executive Committee:

The Arab Palestine Party, in May 1935, headed by Jamal al-Hussaini; it more or less embodied the policy of the Mufti
and represented the feudalists and big city merchants.

The National Defense Party, headed by Raghib al-Nashashibi; founded in December 1934, represented the new urban
bourgeoisie and the senior officials.

The Independence Party, which had been founded in 1932, with Auni Abd al-Hadl at its head. It included the
intellectuals, the middle bourgeoisie and some sectors of the petty-bourgeoisie; this contributed to its left wing
playing a special role.

The Reform Party which, founded by Dr Husain al-Khalidi in August 1935, represented a number of intellectuals.

The National Bloc Party, headed by Abd al-Latif Salah.

The Palestine Youth Party, headed by Ya'qub al-Ghusain.

The Mufti's Arab Palestine party and the National Defence party were probably the most
important, representing the Husseini clan and the Nashashibi clan respectively. The Nashashibi clan controlled the
mayoralty of Jerusalem. This gave it a political base as well contact and cooperation with Jews who were employed by the
Jerusalem municipality. The party represented a relatively moderate line in Palestinian politics. An allied but separate
moderate influence was the reform party, which was established by the Khalidi and
Budeiri families [4]. Palestinian politics was thus a reflection of Palestinian clan structure and represented the ruling
clans of Palestine. As Kanafani points out, most of the Palestinian workers and peasants were not represented in these
parties. The party that was to lead the revolt, the Husseini party, represented the feudal landowners as Kanafani points
out, and the Imams and religious establishment, organized in the Supreme Muslim Council run by the Mufti.

Hajj Amin El Husseini had been appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by the British. His Supreme Muslim Council controlled considerable funds that were taken from the Palestine budget, as well as donations
that Husseini raised for the purpose of renovating the mosques in Jerusalem. At least some of these moneys were diverted
for propaganda. Husseini used his post as Mufti to build his base with Arab traditionalists as well as to stay close to
the British mandatory officials. At the same time, he tried to enlist the help of the Axis powers. He approached the
German consul and according to Italian sources, was funded for a long time by the Italian fascist government. His
nephew, Jamal Husseini, formed the Arab Palestine (or Palestine Arab party) to meet the challenge posts by the
Nashashibis. The Husseini faction probably did not participate directly in any of the violence that preceded the revolt,
but certainly contributed incitement, rhetoric and ideological leadership.

The objective bases for Palestinian Arab dissatisfaction and fright over Jewish immigration
and land purchases are difficult to judge and were certainly greatly exaggerated by the Mufti and his followers. Jewish
immigration to Palestine had certainly increased in the 1930s, owing to relatively good economic conditions in Palestine
and the rise of anti-Semitism first in Poland and then in Germany, followed by the German Anschluss (annexation of
Austria) and invasion of Czechoslovakia. The following table summarizes Jewish immigration in the relevant years. In the
last year before the revolt, about 67,000 Jews had arrived in Palestine. About 150,000 in all had arrived since 1933.

Table 1: Jewish immigration to Palestine

Year

Immigrants

1931

4,075

1932

12,533

1933

37,337

1934

45,267

1935

66,472

1936

29,595

1937

10,629

1938

14,675

1939

31,195

1940

10,643

1941

4,592

In 1931, Jews constituted less than 17% of the population. By 1935, 27% of the
population of Palestine was Jewish. The British blue book estimates showed 355,000 Jews in Palestine (see
Population of Palestine). Kanafani
wrote:

Between 1933 and 1935, 150,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine, bringing the country's Jewish
population to 443,000 - or 29.6%

This is untrue according to British statistics. Jewish population did not reach 443,000 until
about 1939 (see
Population of Palestine)
.

For racists who are worried about "demography," such an increase in itself is surely
alarming. According to Kanafani and other Palestinian sources, the immigration and land purchases resulted in massive
displacement of Palestinian workers and dispossession of Palestinian tenant farmers from their land. Objective data do
not seem to bear out these claims. There were local pockets of unemployment. In Jaffa, Kanafani writes, by the end of
1935, 2,270 men and women workers were unemployed, with a population of 71,000. This might represent unemployment of 10%
or 15% of the work force (perhaps 15,000-20,000 in a population of 71,000) in a city that was chosen to dramatize the
plight of Palestinian workers. Considering that unemployment rates of 25% or more were not uncommon in Europe in those
depression years, it is not a reason for armed revolt in itself. Overall, Palestinian Arab workers and peasants had a
consistently higher standard of living than their counterparts in surrounding Arab countries, and these gains increased
over time as we have shown elsewhere (see
Zionism and Its Impact ).

The fact is,
that the area of land under cultivation by Arabs increased dramatically during the mandate years. in 1922, there were 22,000 dunams of Arab land producing citrus crops. In 1940, there were
140,000 dunams of Arab citrus land, mostly producing crop for export in Palestine. In 1931 Arabs had 332,000
dunams of olive groves and apple orchards. By 1942 they had 832,000 dunams under cultivation. [5].

Palestinian Arab agriculture and industry enjoyed an unprecedented growth during the period
of the Mandate. Objectively and subjectively, these gains were obscured by several factors:

1- During the particular period in question there was a severe world economic recession as
well as a local drought.

2-Some traditional Palestinian Arab industries could not compete in the world market or
became unprofitable due to rising wages in other industries. Quoting Kanafani:

Between 1930 and 1935, Palestinian Arab pearl industry exports fell from PL 11,532 to PL
3,777 a year. The number of Palestinian Arab soap factories in Haifa alone fell from 12 in 1929 to 4 in 1935. Their
export value fell from PL 206,659 in 1930 to PL 79,311 in 1935.

This failure could hardly be blamed on Jews or Zionists. No Jews had invested or were
employed in these industries, and Jewish industries did not compete with them. Nonetheless, Kanafani writes:

It was clear that the Arab proletariat had fallen "victim to British colonialism and Jewish
capital, the former bearing the primary responsibility."

Why was it clear? To whom? How could the Jews be responsible for the failure of the Arab
Palestinian pearl industry or the soap industry?

3- Relative to Jewish workers and Jewish farmers, the wages of Arab Palestinians continued to
lag, and in the period in question, apparently fell absolutely. Kanafani writes:

An official census in 1937 indicated that an average Jewish worker received 145% more in
wages than his Palestinian Arab counterpart: (As high as 433% more in textile factories employing Jewish and Arab women,
and 233% in tobacco factories ). "By July 1937, the real wages of the average Palestinian Arab worker decreased 10%
while those of a Jewish worker rose 10%."

In part, the wage differential represented discrimination on the part of Jewish employers.
This was a policy of the Zionist organization. The justification given for it was that Arab workers usually lived with
their extended family and did not pay rent, whereas Jews lived in the city and had to pay rent as well as higher prices
for food and services. In
part, it represented the fact that Arab employers paid less for the same work. That was hardly the fault of the
Zionists. In part, it represented different pay for different skills. By July 1937 of course, the uprising had
been going on for well over a year. Arabs had undertaken a general strike and were involved in violence. Arabs were
undesirable and suspect employees for Jews. Arabs found employment in Arab industries and agriculture, which paid less. This is
probably reflected in the fall in real wages as well as in dismissals of Arabs from work in the Jewish sector. Certainly, the fall in wages in 1937 did not cause the uprising of Izzedin
el Qassam in 1935.

4- Selective hiring of Jews by Zionists. Kanafani documents:

The policy of dismissal of Palestinian Arab workers from firms and projects controlled by
Jewish capital initiated violent clashes. In the four Jewish settlements of Malbis, Dairan, Wadi Hunain and Khadira,
there were 6,214 Palestinian Arab workers in February 1935. After six months, this figure went down to 2,276, and in a
year's time, went down to 617 Palestinian Arab workers only.

The last "settlement" is Hedera. It is not clear what the others were. Hedera at least, was
on land purchased by the Jewish agency. Before it was developed by the Zionists, there was no employment there for
anyone. Jewish Labor did not displace Arab labor. At most, we could say that Jews were now employing less Arabs than
previously. Note that the time period cited coincides with the beginning of the disturbances. It is not
clear to what extent it was due to "Jews only" hiring practices adopted for ideological reasons and to what extent it
was due to firing of Arabs when the disturbances and strikes began, for security reasons or because they did not show up
for work. If this process had been an actual cause of the
unrest, then it would have been taking place before the unrest began, and not simultaneously with it.

However, there was certainly a policy of discriminatory hiring. it was felt that Zionist
funding should be used to provide jobs for Jewish immigrants. On the other hand, it was felt that hiring of Arabs would
establish an unhealthy relationship in which Jews were capitalists and Arabs workers, and that would lead to
anti-Semitism. Ben Gurion explained: [6]

“We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa,
where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and
hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland”

Built in to the Arab complaint against Avoda Ivrit (Jewish labor) was the assumption that the Zionists owed employment to the Arabs
of Palestine. This might have been a valid complaint if Arab industries and agriculture were open to Jews, but they were
not. As it is, Zionist investment could not fail to benefit the Arabs of Palestine and it did benefit them objectively,
though their relative position declined.

5- Massive capital investment and industrialization by Zionists compared to poor investment and
lack of industrialization by Arabs in Palestine.

It was hopeless to try to support the burgeoning Arab and Jewish populations of Palestine
from traditional agriculture and from handicraft industries, pearl fishing, soap "factories" using 18th century
technology and the like. Industrialization required massive investment, but the Arabs did not supply the capital to
their sector. Kanafani wrote:

The disparity represented by the above figures is almost incredible, yet it appears to be a
fact. It is an indictment of Arab Palestinian society and not of Zionists or Zionism. No Zionists prevented Palestinian
Arabs from raising capital abroad. As the Arabs did not invest in Zionist industries, it is hardly to be expected that
Zionists would invest in Arab industries. The numbers are all the more striking when we consider that in 1935, according
to British statistics, there were
about 940,000 Arabs and only 355,000 Jews in Palestine.

6. Arab ruling classes within Palestinian society prevented the rise of an effective
labor movement that could equalize the rights of Palestinian workers; their resentment was deflected to the Jew and to
the national struggle. As
Kanafani writes (emphasis added):

On the other hand, the Palestinian feudal­ religious leadership could not tolerate the rise
of an Arab labor movement that was independent of its control. The movement was thus terrorized by the Arab leadership.
In the early thirties, the Mufti's group assassinated Michel Mitri, President of the Federation of Arab Workers in
Jaffa. Years later, Sami Taha, a trade unionist and President of the Federation of Arab Workers in Haifa was also
assassinated. In the absence of a economically and politically strong national bourgeoisie, the workers were directly
confronted and oppressed by the traditional feudal leadership; the conflict occasionally led to violent confrontations
which were reduced whenever the traditional leadership managed to assume direct control over trade union activities. As
a result, labor activity lost its essential role in the struggle. Moreover, with the sharpening of the national
struggle, a relative identity of interests united the workers with the traditional Arab leadership.

The last observation by Kanafani could perhaps have been taken directly from an analysis of
the economic basis of anti-Semitism and national factors in the class struggle by the Marxist Zionist, Ber Borochov.
(See for example,
The National Question and the Class
Struggle)

7. Industrialization brought about the usual displacement of agricultural population, and
rising wages caused handicrafts industries to fail. This problem was exacerbated by the world depression, and the
affected population was the Arab felahin and handicraft workers of Palestine. The problem became one of Jews
versus Arabs because the Arabs of Palestine failed to reinvest their capital in industrial development. Kanafani writes:

The transformation of the economic and social structure of Palestine, which occurred rather
rapidly, had affected primarily the Jewish sector, and had taken place at the expense of the Palestinian middle and
petty bourgeoisie, as well as the Arab working class. The change from a semi-feudal society to a capitalist society was
accompanied by an increased concentration of economic power in the hands of the Zionist machine

The "concentration of economic power in the hands
of the Zionist machine" as we have seen, was due simply to Zionist investment.

8- A prolonged drought and an economic crisis in 1935 precipitated unrest. A drought between
1931 and 1934 was a major cause of Arab migration to the cities. Smallholder tenant farmers were wiped out. Under the
impetus of Zionist investment, Palestine had prospered until 1935. In 1935 the League of Nations imposed sanctions on
Italy, which had invaded Abyssinia, causing a bank panic and failure of some firms. To limit the impact on Jewish
employment, the Histadruth stepped up its campaign for Jewish labor. [7].

9 - Displacement of Arab tenant farmers who were bought out by Zionists - Kanafani and
other Palestinian sources cite huge numbers of Arab peasants who were supposedly displaced by Jewish land purchases in
the 30s, but objective British government surveys could not find a thousand such families. The movement to the cities
undoubtedly occurred. This must happen when a country is industrialized. There is only so much land, and the population
increases. If agriculture doesn't become more efficient, some must leave the land.
The difference is made up by industrial employment.
All over the world, societies moved from being over 90% rural to being over 90% urban in the space of a century.
Only a few thousand Palestinians in all were directly affected by Zionist land
purchases since the 1880s [8]. However, the Palestinians blamed the entire displacement of rural population, an inevitable
consequence of industrialization, on "the Zionists." This was not an accident, as it was directly encouraged by the Arab
Palestinian ruling classes.

Since the 1920s, Arab feudal interests had represented the problem using two or three
assumptions that were adopted not only by the Arabs of Palestine but by the British themselves, and are evident in the
Hope Simpson Report
as well as the White Paper of 1939:

a- The land has a fixed capacity to absorb immigration. If Jewish immigrants come in,
Arabs will have to leave. This assumption was proven false repeatedly as Jews continued to arrive and the standard
of living of Arabs improved overall and Arab population increased, but it was never abandoned by the British or the
Arabs.

b - Jews have no right to settle in Palestine; the selective racist prohibition of Jewish
immigration and land sales to Jews is perfectly natural and correct and prevents "colonization." - This assumption was tacitly accepted by
the British too, even though they had been given a mandate to create a national home in Palestine and on that basis Jews
had settled and invested in Palestine.

c - Zionists owe the Arabs of Palestine a living - Arab land owners and capitalists
simply reassigned all of their social obligations to the Zionists, and all the ills of Arab Palestinian society became
faults of the Zionists in Arab Palestinian rhetoric. Lack of employment for Palestinian Arabs and lack of education for Palestinian Arabs were
somehow turned into faults of the Jews.

The Arab claims of dispossession and impoverishment by invading Zionists were fictional. They
can be disproved by a few illustrative facts.
It is true that the Jews had purchased over a million dunams of land by the
1930s. It is not true, as Kanfani asserts that this constituted a third of the arable land in Palestine. Kanfani claims:

Ownership by Jewish groups of urban and rural
land rose from 300,000 dunums in 1929 to 1,250,000 dunums in 1930. The purchased land was insignificant from the point
of view of mass colonization and of the solution of the "Jewish problem." But the expropriation of nearly one million
dunums - almost one-third of the agricultural land - led to a severe impoverishment of Arab peasants and Bedouins. By
1931, 20,000 peasant families had been evicted by the Zionists.

Actually, by 1936 the Jews had purchased only 1,231,000 dunams. [10] The total land ownership by Jews in all of
Palestine thus amounted to about 4% of the land area of Palestine. Since the total arable land area of Palestine was
estimated at the time as 6,440,000 dunams (that is the low estimate; the high estimate was over 12,000,000 dunams),
1,231,000 dunams could hardly have been a third of the arable land. Moreover, with improved irrigation and water
sources, more land became arable. In 1936, a commission of inquiry found that a total of 654 Palestinian families had
lost their lands as the result of Zionist purchases, out of a total of 61,408 Arab families that owned or tenanted land.
In other words, less than 1%. These families lost 46,633 dunams of land, which is less than 1% of the arable area. [9]

Likewise, the "Avoda Ivrit" policy of excluding Arab workers from the Jewish economy could not possibly have had a
serious effect on Arab labor, simply because the Jewish economy was too small. In 1936, the Jewish economy employed a
total of 82,000 workers. Of these, 14.6% or about 12,000 were Arabs. [11]

That is not to say that the Arabs had no real grievances or that there was no objective basis
for the revolt. The "classic" Zionist-socialist analysis of the roots of the uprising, adopted by non-socialists as
well, is that the feudalists and Imams felt threatened by the changes introduced by Zionism in the economy and politics
of Palestine. Literacy and modernism challenged traditional society, and industrialization would upset the feudal power
base of the land-owning families, creating urban middle class and professional opposition. To some extent these ideas
are borne out by the party structure outlined above, and the bitter rivalries that ensued between the Husseini clan and
the other factions. In turn, the Zionists, at least in public, tended to ignore or minimize the very real grievances of
the Arabs of Palestine and their genuine national and ethnic feelings.

In theory, Zionist Socialists believed they would develop the land to the benefit of both
Jews and Arabs, and advance the class struggle of the Arab worker. Ber Borochov had announced in Russia:

Many point out the obstacles which we encounter in our colonization
work. Some say that the Turkish law hinders our work, others contend that Palestine is insignificantly small, and still
others charge us with the odious crime of wishing to oppress and expel the Arabs from Palestine...

When the waste lands are prepared for colonization, when modern
technique is introduced, and when the other obstacles are removed, there will be sufficient land to accommodate both the
Jews and the Arabs. Normal relations between the Jews and Arabs will and must prevail (Ber
Borochov - Eretz Yisrael in our program and tactics - 1917)

Borochov had made an insightful analysis of the role of nationalism in the class struggle (The
National Question and the Class Struggle). He should have understood that Jewish workers would be no more welcome
among the Arab proletariat than they were among Russian workers. As he predicted the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism
fueled by the lower middle class as Germany developed, he could have predicted the same developments in Palestine.

In practice, instead of normal relations, two wholly separate communities developed in
Palestine. Jews and Arabs had separate schools, separate medical facilities, separate political parties and separate
labor unions. The Histadrut was a Jewish labor
union, officially called the "Histadrut Hapoalim Ha'ivriim Be'eretz Yisrael" - the Organization of Hebrew Workers
in the Land of Israel. The instinct to separation was to a large extent mutual. The Arabs did not want to learn Hebrew
in Zionist schools, and the Jews had no interest in learning Arabic. In the cities, mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods as
in Jaffa, were rare, and were a focal point for riots and problems. The two communities met as municipal employees in
some towns such as Jerusalem and Haifa, and chiefly, in the market place and labor market. Beyond that, they were
growing increasingly invisible to each other, by conscious effort. The Jewish community was richer. The Arabs
increasingly saw themselves outside, looking in, in their own country. From their perspective, the prosperity of the
Jews was being achieved at their expense, and this could not fail to generate resentment.

Both the Mufti and the British ascribed the unrest to landlessness of Palestinian Arab
Fellahin, supposedly caused by Zionist land purchases. The causes of landlessness among rural Arabs in Palestine were
examined in detail by Kenneth Stein.[45]Archaic land ownership arrangements and the ill-begotten Tanzimat reform favored
large and prosperous classes, who had been gradually buying up the land of smallholders. The devastation wrought by the
Turks during World War I deepened indebtedness of smallholders, who were being forced to sell to the rich. They were
also unable to compete with inexpensive foreign agricultural produce. The extent of landlessness was also deliberately
exaggerated by Sir John Hope Hope Simpson, by erroneous interpretation of data. [46]

The Revolt of Izzedin El Qassam

Mohamed Iz-al-Din al Qassam (Izzedin el Qassam, Izzedin el Kassam) , who sparked the Arab
riots of 1936-30, was not a Palestinian Arab. He was born in Jablah, near Latakiah in Syria, in the early 1880s. When
the French were to take over Syria, he tried to organize guerilla resistance. He joined Feisal in Damascus, but then
fled to Beirut and ultimately to Haifa when the French came. In Haifa he taught school, but soon became imam of the
Istiqlal mosque. He was then appointed regional registrar of marriages for the Supreme Muslim Council of the Mufti Haj
Amin el Husseini. He used this innocent post as a springboard for organizing terrorist cells to strike at the British
and the Jews. His followers began to attack Jewish civilians in the way that was to become the hallmark of Palestinian
"resistance." Three members of Kibbutz Yagur were killed, and a father and son in Nahalal. His followers also tore up
trees planted by the JNF and British railroad tracks. In 1935 Qassam tried to persuade the Mufti to join him in a call
for Jihad against the British, but the Mufti refused. In November of 1935, Qassam took to the hills around Jenin with a
few men. It is not entirely clear what he intended to do, since he was over 50 years old at the time. Qassam and his
followers were in the caves for about ten days, supported by food from villagers. Two of Qassam's men ran into a police
patrol searching for fruit thieves and killed a policeman. The British launched a manhunt. They found Qassam in a cave
near Ya'bad and he was killed in a gun battle on November 19, 1935. Ben Gurion referred to this battle as the "Arab Tel
Hai" - (see
Biography of Joseph Trumpeldor ) a symbolic
battle that created a symbolic hero. Qassam's death became the focal point of an uprising. [12]

The first phase of the uprising - cooptation by the Mufti and The General Strike

The death of Izzedin El Qassam sparked a more general uprising. The political situation began to change too. Hajj Amin
El Husseini now perceived that the time was ripe for more active participation. He formed a paramilitary youth group,
al Futuwwah. The character of this movement cannot be disguised. It was officially designated the "Nazi Scouts." At
the opening meeting on February 11, 1936, he noted that Hitler had begun with 6 followers and now had 60 million. Al
Futuwwah became the major Palestinian underground or terrorist group both during the riots and in 1948. [13].

During this period there was a constant stream of terrorist incidents and disturbances. It is
difficult to pinpoint which of these "little murders" marked the beginning of the revolt. Quoting Kanafani,

Dr. Abd al-Wahhab al-Kayyali thinks that the first spark was lit ... in February 1936, when
an armed band of Palestinian Arabs surrounded a school which Jewish contractors were building in Haifa, employing
Jewish-only labor.

Others generally date the revolt to one of several incidents in April of 1936. Yehuda Bauer
claimed, "the incident that is commonly regarded as the start of the 1936 disturbances" occurred on 19th April 1936,
when Palestinian Arab crowds in Jaffa attacked Jewish passers-by. [14]

Palestinian writers and Benny Morris cite an earlier incident that occurred east of Tulkarm,
on April 15. According to Kanafani, an unknown group of Palestinian Arabs, apparently Qassamists, ambushed fifteen
cars on the road from Anabta and the Nur Shams prison, robbed their Jewish and Arab passengers alike of their money,
while one of the three members of the group made a short speech to the Palestinian Arabs, who formed the majority of the
passengers. Morris adds that the Arabs then shot three of the Jews, two of whom died and one survived. In retaliation,
members of the Irgun Bet which had been formed in 1930, drove up to a shack in Petah Tiqva and shot dead its two
Arab occupants. [15].

Arab attacks ranged from sabotage of the TAP oil pipe line, to ambushes of British patrols,
to bombs hurled into trains and school buildings set afire, to murder of civilians and full scale pogroms. The Arabs
preferred to use schoolboys for many of these attacks, as they were not liable for the death penalty. On Saturday, May
16, 1936, three Jews were killed leaving the Edison cinema in Jerusalem. Once was a doctor, another a baker, a third a
university student.

Sabotage of the pipeline became a trademark of the revolt. It was sabotaged at numerous
places in Palestine and Transjordan, and defended zealously by the Transjordan legion in Jordan and later in Palestine
by
Orde Charles Wingate and his Special
Night Squads

These murderous activities apparently had the wholehearted support of the Palestinian
community initially. Moderate Palestinian Khalil Sakakini wrote in admiration of this slaughter of the three in
Jerusalem: "There is no other heroism like this, except the heroism of the Sheik al-Qassam" [16]. Sakakini also wrote
"They throw bombs, shoot, burn fields, destroy Jewish citrus groves in Jaffa, blow up bridges, cut telephone cables,
topple electric poles. Every day they block roads and every day Arabs display a heroism that the government never
conceived of." [17]

Sakakini wrote further to his son, Sari, "Two anonymous heroes, threw a grenade at a passenger train full of Jewish
civilians and the British soldiers who were escorting them. Who would believe there are such heroes in Palestine? What a
great honor it is, my Sari, to be an Arab in Palestine." [18].

Almost all at once, "National Committees" sprang up in every Arab Palestinian community to
coordinate the revolt and declare strikes. On April 25, Hajj Amin El Husseini formed the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) to
direct the uprising. The AHC remained the leading body of the Arab Palestinians until 1948. A general strike was
declared at the end of April or early May [19]. The strike included non-payment of taxes and closure of Haifa
port. It was only partially successful, since Palestinian Arab mandatory employees did not strike and farmers sowed
their crops as usual.

The Arabs had three demands:

An immediate stop to Jewish immigration.

Prohibition of sale of Arab lands to Jewish settlers.

The establishment of a democratic government in which Arabs would have the largest share in conformity with their
numerical superiority.

The third demand was certainly justified, but as it would have led to implementation of the
first demand, it would violate the terms of the mandate and could not be granted. None of these demands were really
economic in nature. The Arabs did not ask to forbid all land sales - only sale of lands to Jews, nor did they ask for a
stop to Arab immigration. They did not ask for more jobs in the Mandatory government, though this is one of the
grievances that Kanafani lists, or for any other sort of economic relief. Basically, the first two demands were
xenophobic and racist.

The strike was accompanied by a violent guerilla uprising in the countryside, primarily
centered on Nablus but apparently directed in part from Damascus. The Arabs attacked British police, officials and
soldiers, the TAP oil pipeline, railways and Jews as individuals and in groups. They destroyed extensive property,
especially by uprooting orchards, which was a traditional method of settling disputes and exacting vengeance in
Palestine.

As the months wore on, sporadic attacks by villagers gave way to armed bands. The Arab Higher
Committee officially condemned such violence, but they certainly provided the incitement that was a background to it,
and may have provided financing as well. According to Morris [20] and numerous other sources, the armed bands, and
the Arab Higher Committee as well, were probably funded by Fascist Italy and perhaps by Nazi Germany. Axis propaganda
was certainly quite happy to support the Arab cause against the British. Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian foreign
minister, later claimed that millions were given to the Mufti, and
Haganah
intelligence found evidence of German funding, which was later confirmed by captured Abwehr documents. (see
The Iraq Axis Coup
).

As the summer was ending, Fawzi El Qawuqji (or Kaukji) and about 200 volunteers from Iraq,
Syria and Transjordan, entered the Samaria region. Kaukji, born in Syria like Izzedin El-Qassam, made a career of
fighting the British. Like the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, Kaukji had Nazi sympathies and was to spend the war in
Germany, but he was always at odds with Husseini.

The Jewish Response - Except for the initial revenge killing initiated by the Irgun Bet and noted above, the
Zionist response was generally restraint - Havlaga. The Jewish Agency decided that the best course was to stay
out of the fight, and let the anger of the British be directed against the Arabs, rather than entering the fight and
becoming "part of the problem." The latter course would have invited an "even handed" British response. The primary
reaction of the
Haganah was initially defensive. It guarded
vulnerable Jewish neighborhoods and set up factories for armor plating and protecting buses and other vehicles, as shown
at right.

Later, under Yitzhak Sadeh, the Haganah organized flying squads that attempted to intercept
Arab marauders before they struck. In August of 1936, after two nurses had been murdered in Jaffa, four Jews were
murdered in the Carmel and a child was murdered in Tel Aviv, the Haganah took briefly to reprisals, killing several
people in Jaffa, attacking a Bedouin encampment and killing a woman in Tira. The Irgun Bet ambushed the Jaffa train,
killing an Armenian passenger and wounding five Arabs, and they killed two Arabs in Petah Tiqva. The Haganah reaffirmed
its policy of Havlaga (restraint) however, and no further reprisals took place in 1936.

The end of the first phase - With the arrival of Kaukji's band and the increase in
violence, the British finally began to show some resolution in ending the violence. An entire division was brought in
from Egypt, and British began dynamiting houses in Jaffa and Nablus as punitive measures and to make it easier to
control dense neighborhoods. Kaukji and his followers were eventually surrounded. They were forced to leave Palestine
but were not arrested. Economically, the strike had little impact on anyone except the Arabs. The closing of Haifa
port led to the development of the port of Tel Aviv. In the Jaffa area, citrus crops were ripening and had to be picked
and exported. In any case, the economy of Palestine was carried by the numerically smaller Jewish sector rather than by
the Arabs. As Kanafani notes, the value of exports of locally manufactured goods rose from PL 478,807 in 1935 to PL
896,875 in 1937, despite of the revolt. The Arabs could not deprive themselves of their livelihood for long.

The strike and the first stage of violence were terminated when the British announced they
would send a commission to study the problem of Palestine. The British enlisted the support of Transjordan's King
Abdullah, Nuri As-Said, Ibn Saud of Saudi Arab and others, who called for quiet to give the commission a chance to do
its work. In October of 1936, the Arab Higher Committee distributed one or more notices in secret calling upon the armed
bands to comply with the armistice. One version of these notices is given by Kanafani:

"Inasmuch as submission to the will of their Majesties and Highnesses, the Arab kings and to
comply with their wishes is one of our hereditary Arab traditions, and inasmuch as the Arab Higher Committee firmly
believes that their Majesties and Highnesses would only give orders that are in conformity with the interests of their
sons and with the object of protecting their rights; the Arab Higher Committee, in obedience to tire wishes of their
Majesties and Highnesses, the Kings and amirs, and from its belief ill the great benefit that will result from their
mediation and cooperation, calls on the noble Arab people to end the strike and the disturbances, in obedience to these
orders, whose only object is the interests of the Arabs."

However, a different version, quoted by Morris [21]
makes the support of the Arab Higher Committee for violence fairly explicit:

Honored Brethren! Heroes!... Our poor tongues cannot express the strength of our love and
admiration and the exaltation concealed in our hearts for your self-sacrifice and your devoted war for religion,
fatherland and all things Arab. Rest assured that your struggle is engraved in letters of flame in the chronicles of the
nation. And now...we...urge you to stop activity until needed. Save the bullets and take care of them. We stand now in a
period of hope and expectation. If the Royal Commission comes and judges equitably and gives us all our rights, well and
good. If not, the field of battle lies before us...We request...self-control and armistice until a new notice.

The Peel Commission Report

The Peel Commission arrived in Palestine on November 11, 1937.
They heard both Palestinian Arab and Zionist arguments, though the Arab Higher Committee was initially reluctant to
cooperate. The commission concluded that the sides were irreconcilable, and recommended the partition of Palestine.
About 5,000 square kilometers including a part of the Sharon plain and the Galilee would become a Jewish state, a small
area including Jerusalem and a corridor to Jaffa would remain a British mandate and the remainder of Palestine would
become part of Transjordan. To ensure a Jewish majority even in this small area, the commission recommended population
transfer. A large number of Arabs, about 225,000, would be transferred out of the Jewish area and about 1,250 Jews
would be transferred out of the Arab area. This idea, since branded as racist and genocidal and anathematized by the
mainstream Zionist organization as well as by Arabs, was founded in international precedent. The Peel Commission report
noted:

A precedent is afforded by the exchange effected between the Greek and Turkish populations on
the morrow of the Greco-Turkish War of 1922. A convention was signed by the Greek and Turkish Governments, providing
that, under the supervision of the League of Nations, Greek nationals of the Orthodox religion living in Turkey should
be compulsorily removed to Greece, and Turkish nationals of the Moslem religion living in Greece to Turkey. The numbers
involved were high--no less than some 1,300,000 Greeks and some 400,000 Turks. But so vigorously and effectively was the
task accomplished that within about eighteen months from the spring of 1923 the whole exchange was completed. The
courage of the Greek and Turkish statesmen concerned has been justified by the result. Before the operation the Greek
and Turkish minorities had been a constant irritant. Now Greco-Turkish relations are friendlier than they have ever been
before.

In fact of course, the population exchange between Greeks and Turks was not amicable at all.
Indeed the process of expelling people of the wrong ethnicity was accomplished "vigorously and effectively," not only by
"statesmen" but by mobs, and it was hardly a model of humanitarianism. In any case, transfer could not be accomplished
peaceably without the agreement of both sides, and that was not forthcoming in Palestine. The Zionist executive accepted
the proposal, after much debate about the morality of population transfer. Much has been made of the fact that
Ben-Gurion believed that the small state would be a "stepping stone" to a larger one, but no larger state was on offer.
The Arab Higher Committee (AHC) rejected the partition offer on the insistence of the Husseini clan. The
Nashashibis were initially in favor of partition, which was also favored by Transjordan, but withdrew their support in
the face of strong opposition. An assassination attempt on Fakhri Nashashibi in July of 1937 caused the Nashashibis to
withdraw from the Arab Higher Committee. The rebellion and with it the Palestinian Arab cause, then fell into the hands
of the extremist factions exclusively. Fakhri Nashashibi was eventually killed in Iraq by Husseini partisans in 1941.

In the face of Arab opposition, the British shrunk the size of the proposed Jewish state in
successive plans until it was completely absurd, by sending a different commission, the
Woodhead commission. Even this report was rejected and the government concluded that real partition was impractical,
voicing the pious and empty sentiment that the best hope lay in Jewish-Arab cooperation. Partition was deemed to be
impractical because the Arab state would not be economically viable, no matter how small the Jewish state. Palestine
contained more Arabs than ever before in its history, and they enjoyed a higher standard of living than ever before, but
they could only be supported as long as they were dependent on the economic activity of the Jewish minority and the
investments of the Zionist movement. At the same time, the Arabs of Palestine insisted that this Jewish minority was
dispossessing them and tried to rid themselves of the Jews and the Zionist enterprise. The Arabs would say that they had
been impoverished by Zionist "dispossession," but in fact they enjoyed a higher standard of living and faster economic
growth than their neighbors in Syria, Jordan or Egypt.

In setting in motion the Peel commission negotiations, the British

had involved the rulers of the Arab states in the Palestine conflict by asking them to moderate the demands of the
rebels. Instead, the Arab rulers, chiefly King Saud of Saudi Arabia, came down squarely on the side of the Arabs of
Palestine
(See for example
King Saud's Views on Palestine and Partition ).
Nuri As Said of Iraq and Abdullah of Jordan were more moderate, but far less influential. For many years the Mufti
Haj Amin El Husseini had tried to enlist the Arab leaders in opposing the British and uphold the Palestinian
cause, to little avail. Now the British had succeeded in creating an opposition to their own policy!. This involvement,
whether it was essential to marshalling Arabs to the British war effort that was anticipated as some claim, or a
disastrous error, as Elie Kedourie argues,
[22] was to change the nature of the Palestinian-Jewish struggle.

The Resumption of the Revolt

The violence resumed in September of 1937. On September 26, Lewis Andrews, the British
District Commissioner for the Galilee, was assassinated in Nazareth by Arab gunmen. The Arab Higher Committee (AHC)
issued a pro-forma denunciation of the murder, and the Mufti himself, who had found sanctuary in the Haram as
Sharif (Temple Mount) denounced it as well. Nonetheless, on October 1 ,1937 the British issued warrants for the arrest
of all AHC members including the Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, who was dismissed as head of the Supreme Muslim Council.
On October 12, Husseini, disguised as a woman or a Bedouin, escaped from the Haram as Sharif and fled to Lebanon by
boat. From there he fled to Iraq with many members of the AHC , where eventually he helped to instigate a pro-Axis coup.
When that was put down, he fled to Nazi Germany, broadcast for the Nazis and organized SS units in Yugoslavia. (see
also:
Haj Amin El Husseini - Fatwa of 1941,
Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, and

The violence probably peaked in October of 1938. In that month the rebels took over Jerusalem for a time, forcing
evacuation of Jews from the old city. They also committed a pogrom in the Jewish part of Tiberias, murdering 19 people,
among them 11 children. Alex Morrison, a British truck driver sympathetic to the Arab cause wrote, "They left behind
them one of the worst sights I ever saw in my life... The naked bodies of the women exposed the evidence that the knives
had been used in the most ghastly fashion." The bodies of children, apparently set alight with gasoline in a nursery,
were still smoldering." A short time later the rebels murdered the Jewish mayor of Tiberias. [23]

After the Mufti and the Arab Higher Committee had fled, the revolt degenerated into
internecine clan rivalry and brutality. Notables who opposed the resumption of the strike and violence, such as Khalil
Taha, were assassinated.
The Mayor of Haifa, Hassan Shukri, survived two attempts on his life in May of 1936 and Janurary of 1937. In February
1937, the Mukhtar of Caesaria was murdered, and in April of 1937 Ibrahim Yusuf, a member of the Nablus municipal council
was assassinated.
Opposition supporters of the Nashashibi clan and others were beaten and tortured. The terror
was stepped up with the resumption of violence.
On the Mufti's orders from exile, hundreds were assassinated and thousands were terrorized into leaving the country.
In April of 1938, the Mukhtar of Majdal and his wife we killed, as well Nasr al Din Nasr, mayor of Hebron. The wife and
three sons of the mukhtar of Deir es Sheikh were killed in a bomb explosion in September 1938.. Hassan Sidqi al Dajani,
a member of he Jerusalem municipal council was shot dead in November of 1938. The remaining members of the council fled
the country.[24]

Some of the opposition was no doubt a reaction to the intense pressure the British applied to villagers, including
collective punishment and hangings for minor offences. According to Kanafani, in 1938 a number of peasants were executed
merely for being in possession of arms. During that period Britain sentenced about 2,000 Palestinian Arabs to long terms
of imprisonment, demolished more than 5,000 houses and executed by hanging 148 persons in Acre prison, and there were
more than 5,000 in prison for varying terms. Britain and Haganah intelligence encouraged division among the Arabs and
paid informers. Owing to clan rivalries, there were many of these to be found.

H.H. Wilson, an Englishman who taught at Bir Zeit college wrote in the winter of 1938 that
"the rebellion seemed now to be turning into a struggle between the two Arab political parties: The Mufti's faction...
and the Nashashibis, who hope to get the power away from them by making up to the British." In the spring of 1939,
Raghib Nashashibi stated, "We may expect now that for fifty years the Arabs will kill one another to avenge what
happened during the disturbances."[25]

Privately, he told a Jewish employee of the Jerusalem municipality that
there would be peace between the Jews and the Arabs long before there would be peace between the Husseinis and the
Nahashibis.

In January of 1939, rebel commander 'Abd al Halim Al Jaulani wrote:

Complaints are received from the villages in the Jerusalem area regarding robbery, execution,
torture and murder committed by several people wearing the uniform of the Jihad...How did the innocent sin so that their
money is stolen, their cattle robbed, their women raped and their jewellery extorted? Our rebellion has become a
rebellion against the villages and not against the government or the Jews. [26]

Rebel leader Ahmad Mahmoud Hasan (Abu Bakr) reported to the Central Committee in Damascus in
May of 1939:

... The behavior of the fighters toward the villagers is extremely tyrannical and horrifying:
brutal robbery, execution without prior investigation. Conflicts without any reason, disorder and complete inaction.."
[27]

Anwar Nusseibeh, then a judge, called it a "bitter and self-consuming abomination." [28]

Given the rivalry as well as the repression by the British, many of the Palestinian elite,
about 20,000- 30,000, thought it was wisest to leave the country. They settled in neighboring countries and most
returned in the beginning of World War II. Opposition to the revolt grew and the villagers with the help of the
opposition Nashashibi party and the tacit encouragement of the Zionists and the British, organized peace bands that
threw the rebels out in many cases. These were strongest in the Druze areas and around Christian Nazareth, but they also
operated around Nablus.

The British Response - The British adopted harsh methods, including torture of both
Jews and Arabs, and collective punishment of villages. From India, where he was not beloved of the local populace, they
sent Sir Charles Tegart, an experienced policeman, to coordinate the suppression of the rebellion. After the
Munich pact seemed to give Britain some respite in Europe, substantial reinforcements arrived in Autumn of 1938.
From the beginning of 1938 to the end of 1939 over a hundred Arabs were executed, more than one a week on average.
Arthur Wauchope, who had been High Commissioner of Palestine for many years and presided over the many failures of the
mandate, was replaced by Harold MacMichael. While Wauchope was a humanitarian, a friend of the Zionists who also saw the
Arab point of view, MacMichael can only be described as a thoroughly despicable character. He demonstrated
that he had no regard for Arab life whatever in suppression of the revolt by instituting brutal suppression and
indiscriminate punishment. Then in his cynical and draconic enforcement of the ban on Jewish immigration from Europe, he
demonstrated that he had no regard for Jewish lives either. Though there were immigration certificates available despite
the tiny yearly quota of Jewish immigrants, MacMichael barred the entry of Jewish immigrants from Nazi occupied
countries on the grounds that they were enemy aliens! This same attitude was evident in his dealings with Arabs during
the revolt.

The British built a network of security roads. Tegart built a security fence along the
northern border to prevent infiltration of terrorists. He ordered the construction of a string of police forts, known as
Tegart forts, that remain part of the Israeli landscape to this day. These, as well as the fence, were built by the
Histadruth construction company, Solel Boneh.

Jewish Response and Jewish British Cooperation - The Jewish Agency policy of "Havlaga"
(restraint) was frustrating, but paid dividends to the Jewish Yishuv. Early in the rebellion,
Orde Charles Wingate was
forwarded to Palestine as a captain in the intelligence service. Wingate was ultimately to organize the special night
squads staffed by British soldiers and the
Haganah, that were probably the first effective counter-guerilla
forces in modern times. (see biography ofOrde Charles Wingate).
The British hired some 3,000 to 6,000 Jewish policeman or "Ghaffirs" who were usually also
members of the Haganah. The
Ghaffirs carried light arms legally and with British sanction. The Haganah grew to a force of 6,000 to 12,000 volunteers
during the period of the revolt. The Haganah and the Jewish community had built a small underground arms industry that
was turning out mines, grenades, 2 and 3 inch mortars, armor plating for vehicles and ammunition.

[29].
Together with the innovations of Yitzhak Sadeh, service in the British police, and the organization of Haganah
intelligence that soon evolved into the Sherut Yedioth (Shai), the Jewish response to the revolt and Jewish cooperation
with the British laid the foundation for the Jewish fighting force of 1948. At the same time, the British had
outlawed the construction of new settlements. The Jews responded by building numerous Homa Umigdal (Tower
and Stockade)
settlements that evaded British regulations and allowed construction of dozens of new settlements, about 55 in all
between 1936 and 1939.
Zionist histories repeat with pride that a large number of settlements were created during the revolt and that no Jewish
settlements were removed. Though it is true that no new Zionist settlements were lost, the venerable Jewish community of
Hebron had to be permanently evacuated in 1936, and the riots also reduced by half the population of the Jewish quarter
of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Despite British restrictions on immigration, legal and
illegal immigration
were organized at first by the revisionists and in 1939 by the Jewish Agency. According to official figures, immigration
was reduced drastically and didn't even fill the quotas. On the other hand, official British estimates based on those
immigration numbers gave the number of Jews in Palestine in 1945 as about 554,000, whereas when the results the
Anglo-American survey were tallied, there were about 608,000 Jews. The discrepancy was probably due to illegal
immigration.
(see
Population of Palestine).

The response of the Haganahto Arab violence was officially "moral" and restrained and was primarily confined
to defensive measures. Ben-Gurion explained the policy of Havlaga ("restraint") after one of the early Arab
attacks:

Those who today murdered our people in an ambush not only plotted to
murder some Jews but intended to provoke us... The Arabs stand to gain from such a development. They want the country to
be in a state of perpetual pogrom.... Any further bloodshed [by the Jews] will only bring political advantage to the
Arabs and harm us... Our strength is in the defense... and this strength will give us political victory if England and
the world will know that we are defending ourselves rather than attacking. [30]

However in early 1939, on the orders
of David Ben Gurion, Yitzhak Sadeh created three "special operations" (Peulot Meyuhadot, Pu"m) ) units that attacked Arab
terrorists and civilian targets and later attacked some British military targets as well.

The Irgun Response - The policy of cooperation and restraint that yielded such
dividends for the Zionists was frustrating for the Jewish population, which was under attack. It made a natural
political target for the Revisionist faction, that insisted on armed action and had never wanted to cooperate with the
British. The Irgun bet had organized itself into the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (Etzel) by this time, though about half its
members had returned to the Haganah in 1937. They began a bombing campaign against Arab
civilians. The first such attack killed two Arabs in a bus depot off Jaffa Street in Jerusalem on November 11, 1937. On
November 14, the Irgun carried out a number of fatal attacks throughout the country. In April 1938, the Irgun ambushed
an Arab bus on the Safed-Rosh Pina road. The ambush resulted in no deaths, but the British caught the three
perpetrators, and hanged Shlomo Ben Yosef, the only Jew to be hanged in the uprising. The Irgun tried to make him into a
hero. Ben Gurion remarked, "I am not shocked that a Jew was hanged in Palestine. I am ashamed of the deed that lead to
the hanging." [31] On July 6, 1938, the Irgun planted
two large milk canisters filled with explosive in the Arab suq (market) in Haifa, killing 21 and wounding 52. On July
15, an Irgun bomb killed 10 Arabs and wounded over 30 in the Old City of Jerusalem. On July 25, about 40 Arabs were
killed by a bomb in the Haifa market. On August 26, a bomb in Jaffa killed 24 and wounded 39.[32] The Irgun
bombings were very possibly the inspiration for the terror bombings of Palestinian Arabs that succeeded them.

The official Zionist organization denounced terror despite the Special Operations units. In
addition to considerations of cooperation with the British, it was feared, according to Tom Segev, that terror would
unleash an unending Arab blood feud. A group of Jewish intellectuals and politicians issued a declaration against
terror. "The imperative (not to kill), present at the infancy of an ancient people, applies today," it stated. The
signatories included the author Shmuel Yosef Agnon, the poet Shaul Tchernikovsky, the philosopher Martin Buber, and
politicians Berl Katznelson and Golda Myerson (
Golda Meir). [33]

Casualties - Estimates of the numbers of casualties and dead vary widely. According to
Morris [34] the revolt claimed between 3,000 and 6,000 Arab dead. Another Israeli historian [35]
claimed that 4,500 Arabs were killed by other Arabs. According to Kanafani, citing Khalidi:[36]

The best estimate of Arab human losses in the 1936-39 revolt is that which states that losses
in the four years totaled 19,792 killed and wounded; this includes the casualties sustained by the Palestinian Arabs at
the hands of the Zionist gangs in the same period.

This estimate is based on the first conservative admissions contained in official British
reports, checked against other documents. These calculations establish that 1200 Arabs were killed in 1936. 120 in 1937,
1200 in 1938 and 1200 in 1939. In addition 112 Arabs were executed and 1200 killed in various terrorist operations. This
makes the total of Arabs killed in the 1936-39 revolt, 5,032, while 14,760 were wounded in the same period.

Detainees numbered about 816 in 1937, 2,463 in 1938, and approximately 5,679 in 1939.

According to Sachar [37] there were 2,394 Jewish casualties, 620 British and 3,764 Arabs by
August of 1939, when the revolt was essentially over.

The St. James Conference - The British understood that world war was looming, and that
it was essential not to antagonize the Arabs. The Middle East subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence noted in
January 1939:[38]

We feel it necessary to point out... the strong feeling... in all Arab States in connection
with British policy in Palestine...We assume that, immediately on the outbreak of war, the necessary measures would be
taken... in order to bring about a complete appeasement of Arab opinion in Palestine and in neighboring countries.

The government of Neville Chamberlain dutifully set out to effect "complete appeasement."
To resolve the question of Palestine, the British called the St James conference in February of 1939. The British
released interned members of the Arab Higher Committee so that they could attend the conference along with delegates
from Arab countries.
Hajj Amin El Husseini was barred from
attending, but his nephew Jamal Husseini represented him. The Arabs would not meet with the Jews, and so conferences
were conducted separately. Ben Gurion, for the Jews, was conscious of the plight of European Jewry, increasingly
imperiled by the advance of Nazi Germany and the impending war. A Zionist plea to accept 10,000 Jewish children had been
rejected by the British in 1938. Ben-Gurion of course insisted on continued immigration and objected to formation of an
independent Arab state, which would void the obligations of the British mandate. The Palestinian Arabs insisted on an
end to immigration and an independent Arab state. The Arab states agreed to support whatever solution the Arabs of
Palestine would accept, but the Arabs of Palestine would accept no compromise. The British offered to reduce Jewish
immigration to 100,000 over 10 years, and later to 80,000 to no avail. The conference adjourned, a failure, on March 17.
[39]

The White Paper -
The British government apprehended the approach of war more and more strongly with each day that passed, and the need to
appease the Arabs seemed to become increasingly acute. Neville Chamberlain remarked "If we must offend one side, let us
offend the Jews rather than the Arabs."
[40]
This policy is more difficult to understand than appears
at first. True, the British could not afford an Arab rebellion in the Middle East, interference with shipping via the
Suez canal or interference with oil supplies during war time. However, in reality there may have been little to fear
from the Arabs. In Iraq, the regime of Nuri as-Said and the Hashemites was totally dependent on British bayonets,
as would be proven shortly. Despite British concessions, the Mufti instigated a pro-Axis coup in Iraq, but it was
overthrown by the British and the government was restored. The Hashemite king of Iraq, like Abdullah, the Hashemite King
of Jordan, would necessarily have favored a partition solution that gave control of Palestine to the Hashemites rather
than to the radical Husseini and his Palestinian followers. Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia was likewise totally dependent on
the British. In Egypt, the British had to impose a sympathetic war time government more or less by force in any event.

However, in 1939, the Chamberlain government remained fixated on its policy of meeting force with appeasement. In May of
1939, the British issued the infamous
White Paper of 1939, which became known to Zionists
simply as "The White Paper" - "Hasefer Hajavan." It limited Jewish immigration to
15,000 per year for five years, and placed extreme restrictions on purchases of land by Jews in Palestine. In
parliament, Winston Churchill denounced the White Paper as another Munich and a "surrender to Arab violence." The
Permanent Mandates Commission of the Council of the League of Nations rejected the White Paper as violating the terms of
the mandate, which was to have created a national home for the Jewish people.
[41]
The British were undeterred. The
League of Nations was dying in any case. The White Paper spelled doom for the Jews of Europe, but it failed to satisfy
the Arabs of Palestine. The moderate faction initially accepted it, but the Arab Higher Committee, led by Husseini,
rejected it. The slogan of the rebels remained "The English to the sea, the Jews to their graves."
[42]
The Arabs of Palestine pronounced their own doom. So defined, the conflict could only end with the expulsion or
extermination of either Arabs or Jews.

Effect on the Zionist Movement - Since ultimately
the Jews triumphed in Palestine and obtained a state, it is too easy to agree in retrospect with historians like Benny
Morris [43], who argue that the White Paper was not really a serious blow to the Jewish
Yishuv and the
Zionist enterprise. Morally, the Zionist movement was stunned. The goal of the Zionist movement had been to create a
national home for the Jews and a shelter from persecution. It had now failed the Jewish people in its most critical
hour. Anti-Zionist Jews, in particular
Bund
members, were to make the most of this failure. The policy of the Zionist executive which was to cooperate with the
British, proved to be a disastrous failure, and the Revisionists who opposed
such cooperation would use this failure to drive a wedge into the Zionist movement that could have caused a fatal split. True, by 1941 the gates of occupied
Europe had been more or less slammed shut by the Nazis, but the British had started limiting immigration in 1936.
Perhaps a 100,000 or even 200,000 Jews could have been rescued with a determined effort, if immigration had remained at
the levels of 1935, and if a determined effort had been made, with British cooperation. Even n the spring of 1939,
it was not too late to save at least some of the Jews of Poland which was yet to be invaded, and even in 1940, Jews
could have been rescued from Hungary, France and other countries. The Zionist movement faced a disaster politically,
morally and in human terms that should not be minimized in hindsight.

The Zionist movement was to recover from the disaster, but
it did not learn all the lessons that should have been learned from the Arab uprising, and it also learned some bad
lessons. The primary failure of the Zionist movement was to treat the Arabs of Palestine as invisible, to ignore their
needs and concerns and to insist on totally separate development. Humanitarianism, equality and socialist and democratic
ideals were given lip service far more often than they were implemented. It is possible that nothing the Zionists would
have done could have avoided the split, but a less drastic and bitter fight would certainly have resulted if Zionists
had made allowances for Arab labor, had helped to encourage education and literacy among the Arabs of Palestine, they
might have created a stratum of the population less inimical to Zionism and more immune to religious and political
extremism.

A second error was the resort to terror reprisals against
civilians. Such murders were the weapon of the Arab Palestinians, and as long as only they used them, they were clearly
in the wrong. When the Zionist groups began replying in kind, they did the extremist Arab cause a service. it could not
be morally justified and it was opposed to the vaunted Zionist ideals. Inasmuch as the Arabs of Palestine were in large
part unable to control the doings of the Mufti and his henchman or of the revolt leaders in Damascus, terrorizing
civilians had no deterrent effect. It helped to fan the fames of hate, to destroy the possibility of coexistence, and to
undermine the moral basis of Zionism - all these, after all, were goals of the Mufti and his men, and Jewish terrorism
against civilians was accomplishing them. When the Jewish Yishuv became a state, use of terror had worse implications.
Indiscriminate murder of civilians by a state is a war crime. it indicates a breach of military discipline - armed
forces that are our of control and cannot be depended upon to serve a strategic military purpose.

Effect on the Arab Palestinians - The Arabs had won
a great victory in the White Paper, and despite the rejection of the white paper by the AHC, it was perceived as a
victory. "The average Arab one spoke to was triumphant, regarding the White Paper as a concession won by Arab arms,"
wrote the British observer, H.H. Wilson [44]. Palestine under the British would remain essentially closed to
Jewish immigration, and Jews would never get a homeland in Palestine as long as the mandate continued. The Zionists
would lose the entire Jewish population of Europe, upon which they had counted to settle Palestine. Given the numerical
superiority of the Arabs of Palestine and the support of surrounding states, as well their influence with the British it
would not have been difficult to ensure an Arab Palestine either through continuation of the mandate or by meeting any
feeble Zionist attempt at resistance with massive repression. By any objective measure, the Zionist project in
Palestine appeared to be hopeless.

However, the Arab Palestinians made several mistakes that
would prove fatal to their cause. The first major failure was the almost total lack of constructive effort in building
up their own institutions, investing in the Arab sector of the Palestinian economy and creating their own "state in the
making" as the Zionists did. For example, the Mufti, Hajj Amin El Husseini
tried to create a National Fund in 1931, for investment in Palestine and primarily perhaps to purchase land and
prevent the Jewish National Fund from buying it, but they did not succeed in raising very much money [45] The
discrepancy in Zionist investment versus Arab Palestinian investment, documented by Kanafani and others, is glaring, and
it was certainly not the fault of the Zionists.

A second failure of the Arab Palestinians was the
split in their ranks. The split that divided the Zionists in failure did not prove fatal, even when the Haganah
turned against the revisionists actively. However, the split that divided the Arab Palestinians in their hour of
success, accompanied by violence and repression, had grave consequences. Most of the moderate political leadership,
resting on the urban middle class led by the Dajanis and the Nashashibis and their allies, the leadership that should
have been the backbone of the state, was wiped out. This was largely the doing of the Arab Palestinian leadership,
rather than British repression. British repression after all, failed utterly in its attempts to wipe out Hajj Amin El
Husseini and his clan, who were the main internal instigators and hence the main targets of their efforts. It is
unlikely that it was responsible for the breakdown of Arab leadership as some have claimed.

A third error was resort to terror against Jewish
civilians as an almost exclusive weapon. This has backfired on the Palestinian cause since the 1920s and it continues to
do so. If, during their uprising, the Arabs of Palestine had confined their violence to British targets, it is unlikely
that the Jews would have been so concerned to develop a military defense capability. Arab riots in the 20s and 30s
helped to make self-defense a central part of the ethos of Zionism. Since then, they have gained nothing by
branding themselves as terrorists by attacks on schools, hi-jacking of airliners and suicide attacks.

After the victory of the White Paper, the Palestinians
made several other errors, the seeds of which were planted in the period of the great uprising or before.

A fourth error was siding with the wrong side in World War
II. The identification with the Nazi cause was already evident in the 30s. It proved to be less important than one might
think, since the British, as well as Arab leaders, were quite willing to deal with Nazi war criminals like Husseini
after World War II.

A fifth error was utter inflexibility. The great issue of
the post war period that built pressure for a Jewish state were the 250,000 displaced persons in Europe, of whom the US
pressured Britain to admit 100,000. If the Arabs of Palestine had yielded on this point and allowed immigration, there
would have been no decision to partition Palestine in 1947 and no Jewish state.

A sixth and most disastrous blunder committed by Arab and
Muslim countries was persecution of their Jewish populations. The basis of this persecution was racism, which in part
was inspired by Palestinian rhetoric. Some of it was endemic in the societies of those countries - as for example in
Yemen. In part it was kindled by the issue of Palestine. Persecution of Jews helped to encourage the mass
migration of Jews from Arab countries to Palestine and ensured a rapid population expansion in the first years of the
existence of the Jewish state.

The Zionist movement would use their defeat much better than the Arabs of Palestine used their victory.

Ami Isseroff

Biblography

Arnon-Ohana, Yuval, (Hebrew)
Peasants in the Arab Revolt in the Land of Israel 1936-1939, Papyrus, 1982.

Kanafani, Ghassan, "The 1936-39 Revolt
in Palestine" published in English by Committee for a Democratic Palestine, New York, 1972 and by Tricontinental
Society, London, 1980. On the Web at http://www.newjerseysolidarity.org/resources/kanafani/kanafani4.htm

Kedourie, Elie, Islam in the Modern
World, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981.

Khalidi, Walid,From Haven to
Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948, The Institute for Palestine Studies, 1971.

Morris, Benny,Righteous Victims :
A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-1999, Knopf, 2000.

Tessler, Mark A., A History of the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Indiana Series in Arab and Islamic Studies), Indiana Univ Press, 1994.

Teveth, Shabtai,Ben-Gurion and the
Palestinian Arabs: From Peace to War, London: Oxford University Press, 1985,

Notes

Morris, 2000, p. 124.

Morris, 2000, p. 91.

All "Kanafani" references are to Kanafani, Ghassan, "The 1936-39 Revolt in
Palestine" published in English by Committee for a Democratic Palestine, New York, 1972 and by Tricontinental Society,
London, 1980. On the Web at http://www.newjerseysolidarity.org/resources/kanafani/kanafani4.htm

'H - ('het) a guttural sound
made deep in the throat. To Western ears it may sound like the "ch" in loch. In Arabic there are several letters that
have similar sounds. Examples: 'hanukah, 'hamas, 'haredi. Formerly, this sound was often represented by ch,
especially in German transliterations of Hebrew. Thus, 'hanukah is often rendered as Chanuka for example.

ch - (chaf) a sound like "ch"
in loch or the Russian Kh as in Khruschev or German Ach, made by putting the tongue against
the roof of the mouth. In Hebrew, a chaf can never occur at the beginning of a word. At the beginning of a word, it has
a dot in it and is pronounced "Kaf."

u - usually between oo as in spoon
and u as in put.

a- sounded like a in arm

ah- used to represent an a sound made by
the letter hey at the end of a word. It is the same sound as a. Haganah and Hagana are alternative
acceptable transliterations.

'a-notation used for Hebrew and Arabic
ayin, a guttural ah sound.

o - close to the French o as in homme.

th - (taf without a dot) - Th was
formerly used to transliterate the Hebrew taf sound for taf without a dot. However in modern Hebrew there
is no detectable difference in standard pronunciation of taf with or without a dot, and therefore Histadruth and
Histadrut, Rehovoth and Rehovot are all acceptable.

q- (quf) - In transliteration of
Hebrew and Arabic, it is best to consistently use the letter q for the quf, to avoid confusion with similar sounding
words that might be spelled with a kaf, which should be transliterated as K. Thus, Hatiqva is preferable to Hatikva for
example.